♪ good evening. welcome. i'm anderson cooper in new york. >> i'm dr. sanjay gupta. welcome to the cnn global town hall, "coronavirus facts and fears." it's our 25th since the pandemic began. out's it's our first of the biden administration and it's being seen around the world on cyn international, cnnss espano and cnn.com. >> that said, those problems are many and the pain is intense. this has been the deadliest month for americans and it is not over yet. today the nation's new cdc director signalled more darkness ahead. >> if we continue on the current trajectory, the cdc most recent national ensemble forecast predicts 479,000 to 514,000 covid-19 deaths will be reported

by february 20th, 2021. >> that's dr. rochelle walensky, who joins us shortly tonight, along with dr. anthony faucfauc. here's white house senior covid adviser andy slavitt doing the same on vaccine availability. >> right now, i want to level with the public, we are facing two constraining factors. the first is getting enough supply quickly enough and the second is the ability to administer the vaccines quickly once they're produced and send out to the sites. we are taking action to increase supply and capacity, but even so, it will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one. >> we'll be devoting a good deal to the subject tonight. >> that's right, anderson. we're going to ask dr. walensky and dr. fauci how the administration inteds to get the states 16% more doses, using the

defense production act to boost production and just generally how to remove obstacles to getting people vaccinated. >> we'll be joined by the head of the newly created health equity task force, that's with a recent cnn analysis showing that white americans vax nate ccinat 2.3 times higher than black americans and 2.6 times higher than latino americans. >> that's a real problem, anderson and there is concerns as well about the variants identified in britain and south africa and how they might change this entire threat picture. we're going to talk about the new data that shows when following proper guidelines it can be safe to send kids back to school. >> we have correspondents all over the map in florida and new york on vaccine availability and london and johannesburg on the new variants. we take your questions, as well. we have 15,000 so far. tweet them to us with #cnntownhall or leave a comment

on the cnn fashionbook page. a lot of you have sent them in video form. we thank you for that. you can see some up on the screen and we'll get to as many as we can tonight. it is certainly a lot, but we'll start with randi kaye at a mass vaccination center north of miami. how is the rollout going in florida? >> reporter: anderson, seniors here are the top priority. the governor said today they have vaccinated more than 1 million seniors, but there are 4 million seniors here. b so, they have a ways to go, so why they are opening up this mass vaccination center behind me at miami gardens. they are doing 1,000 vaccinations a day, but say they could do more if they had more supply. the rollout here has been pretty bumpy. senior citizens have had to camp out overnight for hours to try to get an appointment. you've had hospitals canceling appointments on them because supplies didn't show up. senior sit essentials are being asked to use email to make appointments, many of them are having trouble and struggling with that email. you also had vaccine tourism here. 40,000 people who were not

residents of florida came in here and got their vaccinations. that's now no longer allowed. you do have to be a resident and 65 or older. there is some hope. the governor's gotten several hundred publix pharmacies enrolled and they are doing about 15,000 vaccinations a day. sanjay? >> yeah, randi, what about elsewhere in the country? i mean, we know it's before varying pretty wildly from state to state. i think kcnn's analysis shows some states have administered 40% of their doses, others as high as 80%. can you walk us through some of that? >> yeah, it is a mix of the good, bad and ugly. if you look at west virginia for example, that's a bright spot here in this vaccination process. they are second in the nation in terms of the numbers of the vaccines that they have administers per capita. they are just behind alaska. the governor there said they administered more than 100% of the vaccine supply they received. they've been able to squeeze out

extra doses out of those viles. so they have administered about 106%, the governor said, about 9% of west virginians have been vaccinated, compared to about 6% nationally. but then the you look at new york and new york city, the governor there has been pleading for more vaccines. he says that if he had enough supply, he could vaccinate the entire state of new york within a month. he says there is about 7 million eligible people in that first tier and they're only getting about 225,000 vaccinations per week. so they need the doses per week so they actually need more. he would like to open up a mass vaccination site at yankee stadium like we're seeing here, but he said they just don't have enough supply. finally, if you look at california, they really are in trouble. they have about 3 million health care workers and more than 6 million senior scitizens to vaccinate in this first round. that's about 9 million people. they've administered about 2.6 million doses, so, they're saying it's going to take them four or five months to vaccinate

all of the seniors in the state of california at this point. >> randi kaye, appreciate it. coming up next, to the uk we go, where the government's chief scientific adviser today said roughly 1 in 55 people now have the virus. britains do have emergency access to a vaccine from university of oxford and astrazeneca that americans do not. that said, they're also coping with that faster spreading strain of the virus, which only recently arrived in the united states. clarissa ward is with us in london tonight. how is the vaccine rollout going there and in the rest of europe? >> reporter: well, in aneurope, anderson, it is not going well at all. war of words between the european union and astrazeneca. specifically, some countries in europe even threatening to actually sue astrazeneca. astrazeneca's main manufacturing headquarters are here in the uk, so, it's perhaps not a huge surprise that things in the uk are actually going really well

on that front. more than 7 million people have now been given the first dose of the vaccine. they've opened vaccination centers all over the country, in cathedrals, in mosques and movie theaters, even in lord's cricket ground here in central london. one thing to note, though, astrazeneca, while he was approved here very quickly, the first country to approve and start implementing the vaccine, hasn't by approved in the eu, though that's expected to happen on friday and also has yet to be approved in the u.s. the fda says it is still conducting trials to determine how safe it is, anderson. >> and clarissa, you know, we've been hearing a lot about this variant, first discovered in the uk and i'm curious, what has been the impact on the country over there and the efforts, how are they going to stop the spread? because i feel like it's a little preview of what could happen here in the united states. >> yeah, sanjay, i'm not going

to lie. it really grim. i have been here for most of the lockdown, ten months now, and this is the worst that we've seen it. as anderson said, 1 in 55 people has covid in this country. more than 100,000 deaths per capita, that's the highest mortality rate in the word, which is a very grim milestone, indeed. and now, we have all these restrictions in place, schools are closed at least until march. you're not supposed to leave your home unless you're going for essential shopping or essential exercise. you're not allowed to socialize outside. all nonessential stores are closed. and just today, we heard from prime minister boris johnson, a new raft of travel restrictions. people who want to leave the country now for whatever reason will have to fill in a declaration form explaining why it is that they need to leave the country. and people returning to the country, residents of the uk, if they're coming from any one of these 22 countries that the government has laid out, they will now face a mandatory hotel

quarantine of ten days. the idea behind this, sanjay, to stop the two strains that are still out there, south africa and brazil. they understand they can't stop the uk variant. that has already spread, but they're hoping to at least stop south africa's strain, brazil's strain, because they're concerned that it could potentially jeopardize this vaccine rollout plan. >> clarissa ward, thank you so much. be careful there. up next, south africa, and what dr. anthony fauci suggested could be the more problematic of the two. i know you went inside the lab where the variant was discovered. what have you learned about how the variant could affect the efficacy of the vaccines already approved for emergency use? >> reporter: that's right. we went inside the lab where they discovered this variant that has been circulating in south africa and just dominating this dramatic second wave of the virus here in southern africa. now, the scientists there working around the clock, anderson, to understand whether

antibodies from previous strains of this virus work. they say, in fact, they're not working as well to combat this new strain and also, whether vaccines work. that is the million dollar question right now, because it could have a huge impact not just here in south africa, but on the global fight against this pandemic. so far, there is some good news. preliminary results, anderson, suggest the pfizer and moderna vaccine should work or be somewhat effective against the strain, but it's early days here, anderson. >> david mckenzie, thank you so much. joining us now, dr. rochelle walensky. among her other accomplishments, she's recognized for her work against hiv in south africa. she served as chief of infectious diseases at mass general hospital. want to welcome her and welcome back dr. anthony fauci, who needs no introduction, but the longtime head of tnhs.

dr. fauci, i want to get to south africa in a moment. there remain questions covid allocations for states would increase 15% next week. how is that possible next week when it wasn't possible this week and where is the extra vaccine coming from? >> anderson, it isn't a question of extra vaccine coming from. the flow of vaccine that has have been coming in on what the person responsible for it general guss perna calls it cadence. right now we're having, and what the president was referring to, is that a steady, reliable flow be come in, he'd like to get them up to about 10 million per week. it's right now, i believe, around 8.5 million. he wants to get it up to around ten. you can do that by efficiencies, by paying attention to anything that might get in the way of that and to try to get it smoothly into the flow.

so it isn't a question of getting vaccine that wasn't there before that's there now, it's an even flow, which we believe we can accomplish. >> dr. walensky, welcome to our town hall. the latest numbers reported by the cdc say that in total, more than 47 million vaccine doses have been distributed, but fewer than 25 million have been administered. so, people have heard these numbers but i want to play something that the covid coordinator said in today's briefing about that. >> some of what the states have right now is inventory to do the very, very important second shot. i think it's important when you're looking at state's inventories, recognize that some of that is being held for the very important second shot. >> i want to clarify, dr. walensky, is that what is happening here to some extent? are states holding on to vaccine to ensure that second dose? >> good evening.

so a couple things with regard to the distribution and how much has been administered and the holding on. first of all, the distribution, those 47 million doses that you talk about, some of those have just arrived today or yesterday. some of them are in the several day-long distribution process to get them to the final state where they will actually be administered into the arm. so there is some delay from the time they are distributed to the time they could possibly be administered. on the administration side, there is some delay in reporting. we know probably a bit more than the 23 million that have been reported have actually been administered. and then there are some doses that we need to make sure for the four or five-day window we give people in order to get their second shot, either at three weeks or four weeks, we need to make sure that's available for them when they return for their second shot. when you do all that math, you still end up with some millions of doses that are sitting on the shelves and have not yet been administered and in fact, that's one of the bottlenecks and one

of the ways that we have to get resources to the states to make sure that they can quickly administer the vaccines that are on their shelves. >> so, i just want to be clear. some states, if they're holding onto that second dose, that seems like it would be a good idea, right? because they want to ensure that they're going to have it for the people that got the first shot. is that the right approach? >> i don't want to imply that the people are sitting -- the states are sitting on doses for weeks and weeks. there is some period of time, a grace period in that 21 days or 28 days where people are coming in expecting to get that second shot and we believe that we should be following the fda authorization for both of these vaccines and we need to make sure that that vaccine is available when those people come in. and so, we are ensuring that that vaccine is available for the second shots of both pfizer and moderna. >> dr. fauci, it was discussed today at the coronavirus briefing in the white house press briefing, which is nice to have both those things, frankly,

once again. president biden has invoked the defense production act to ramp up making syringes and equipment to put shots in arms, but not yet for making more vaccine shots. why is is that? >> as you probably also heard, anderson, that the arrangement, the contractual arrangement has been made with both moderna and with pfizer to get an additional 100 million doses apiece, both from pfizer and moderna. they previously had a contractual arrangement that's being enacted right now, with giving 200 million apiece, which would be 400 million. so, right now, with moderna and pfizer, with the new promise of an additional 100, we should have 600 million doses of vaccine from the two companies. >> but that won't be until like the summer, correct? >> right, exactly.

that's the way we're going to be rolling it out and the flow of the vaccines that will be coming out will be able to get the people vaccinated in an orderly way. so there really isn't a need now if you want to do the defense production act to make another company make more vaccine, i think what people don't appreciate, how exquiz italy sensitive and difficult that process is. you can't open up another factory from a company that isn't moderna or isn't pfizer and say, make mrna vaccine. it's just not going to happen that way, because of the process is one that is difficult in the sense of starting from scratch. so, the dpa, the defense production act that the president was referring to, was to do the things that would facilitate the ability to get those vaccines administered and one case in point, that i referred to, was the dead space

syringes so you can get the extra dose out of a vial. instead of five doses, you get six. but he was not referring to getting more vaccine from that. he was referring to other things. >> you know, dr. walensky, we did a cnn analysis and we found that somewhere between 12% and about a third of americans probably have some protection against covid-19 through vaccination, but also obviously, from the growing number of people who have actually gotten infected and then recovered with the virus. currently about 6% of the population has been vaccinated. is that where you hope we would be by now? and when you add the number of americans vaccinated after the first 100 days, where will we be? that's not going to be enough, but will the country feel different or be more normal? >> you know, i think it's going to take awhile for us to feel like we're back to a sense of normalcy. after the first 100 days, i think we'll get 100 million vaccines into people's arms. that will be protection for perhaps about 50 million, some

people will be after two doses, some people will still be in the process of getting their second dose. will we feel as if we have the herd immunity that everybody has been talking about by the end of the first 100 days? i told you i'd tell you the truth. i don't think we'll feel it then. i think we're still going to have, after revaccinate 100 million americans, we're going to have 200 million more that we're going to need to vaccinate. so, we are working to figure out where the bottlenecks are and to resolve those bottlenecks, but it's going to take some time to get 300 million americans vaccinated twice. >> do you count the people who have been infected and have protection as toward that herd immunity? if a third of the country has antibodies as a result of infection, does that count? towards herd immunity? >> you know, the guidance right now is that even if you've had infection before, we would still recommend a vaccine. we're asking people to wait 90 days from the time they were infected. we don't know a lot about the

long-term immunity of this disease, so, we are still recommending it. as i think about herd immunity and how many people we need to get vaccinated, we need to get an awful lot of people vaccinated. i don't necessarily want to put a number on it, especially as we think about this variant from the uk, where there might be increased transmissability, we might need more herd immunity than we really thought. in my mind, everybody should be rolling up their sleeve. >> and dr. fauci, are you more confident in their efficacy against the uk variant? and i think the brazil variant, that also seems inevitable, or am i wrong? >> you know, a lot -- no, a lot of people are going to be confused about this. so, if you look about it, when we talk about the vaccines that we are currently utilizing, the moderna and the pfizer, and you

look at the antibodies that are induced by them and match them in a test tube, there appears to be really very good and very little impact when you're looking at the uk-117 lineage, as we refer to that. so, there should be not be an issue there. >> so, in layman's terms, that means the vaccine works against the uk variant. >> yeah, well, be careful. it means that in the invitro indication, it should work. we haven't proven yet -- >> okay. >> -- that it does. it should work. that's -- we really got to be careful, because when you get to the south african, the 351 lineage, as we refer to it, that's, as you mentioned and quoted me correctly, that is much more problematic, because the invitro in the test tube capability of those antibodies

is multifl ple fold down. it's still above the threshold of what you would expect protection. so, when we say that the vaccine looks like it would protect against the south african isolate, that's based on the invitro. the pooroof in the pudding is wt actually happens in the field when you're vaccinating people. i might make one comment that i think will be clarifying. there are other trials going on. we're expecting in a few days or so, a day or two or three, the results from a study which actually will give us some insight, because that is a study that is being tested both in the united states and in south africa and in brazil. so, we may, when we get those data, get a feel for, in reality, is there any difference in the strain protection that we see in the united states, which includes the uk strain, because

at least 25 states in the united states already have that uk strain. we don't apparently have the south african except for one or two. it been seen for example in someplace in a location in minnesota, but we don't know what the penetration is. what we need to see is the data, when you compare the capability of the vaccine of protecting against the strain that's here versus the strain that's in south africa. but as i mentioned, anderson, we're much more concerned about the south african strain. what we're going to do about it, we are already working with the companies to make what we would call a booster potential of getting the same vaccine but only sticking into it what would be expressing the mutant that you see in south africa. so we're already trying to stay one or two steps ahead of the

game so that if, in fact, we have a situation where the south african strain is prevalent here, it's here but certainly not dominant, and you really want to get ahead of it from a protection standpoint, you're going to want to have a vaccine that specifically addresses that strain and that's what we're already working on. >> and just briefly, brazil is a country i love, we have a lot of viewers in brazil. what about the brazilian strain? i know it hasn't really come here yet, but erin burnett aired a report from matt rivers, but it looks awful. >> well, yes. it is -- we don't know enough -- we don't know as much about it as we do because we have the studies that we've been doing in collaboration in south africa, so, we know a lot more, but when you look at the mutations, anderson, they are really quite similar, so, i would say that the brazilian strain is quite similar to the south african. a little bit different, but similar enough to have the same concern about it. >> okay.

>> we're going to come back to this a little bit more in a bit, but dr. walensky, i want to ask a couple of questions about schools. we got a ton of questions about schools and this one is from alisa, who writes this. i am a teacher, i'm dog everything i can so i do not catch this virus. unfortunately, the school district wants to send me back into the classroom with very few protective measures in place. what will the biden administration do to help teachers stay safe? dr. walensky? >> well, first of all, thank you for your service to our children. i would say, according to the acip guidelines, you would be among those who should be eligible for vaccination, so, if you are jeleligible in your sta get yourself vaccinated. the biden administration has very much said and emphasized the importance of getting our children back to school and opening schools. that said, the cdc guidance really says if you're in an area

of the country that is hot with an extraordinarily high covid burden, we should be careful to get our kids back to school and we need to make sure as we get our kids back to school we have the resources to do so. we need to make sure that we have proper ventilation, proper masking and mitigation procedures, so that we can s safely get our kids back to school. there have been several cdc studies that have demonstrated that schools are generally safe places to be, although all of those studies, or at least two of those studies have demonstrated that when there's a lot of masking going on and when there hasn't been that much disease prevalence in the community. >> the study, i think one of the studies you're talking about just released yesterday found that the risk of transmission in the classroom was minimal and i was really struck by the fact that it was so much lower than the surrounding community. nearly 40% lower in the school versus in the community. i mean, doesn't that suggest that schools could, in fact, be

safer than the general community? >> yeah, you're referring to a study out of wisconsin. it was over 4,000 children and over 600 teachers. that study, the time period of that study, part of it was during a time of low prevalence and part of it was during a time of high pref lance. what we know is that probably less disease transmission in schools than in the community, but if you're talking about a high prevalence community, you're still going to have high transmission in the schools, it will just be less than in the community. so, in those situations, we really need to ensure a lot of mitigation procedures. there was a lot of mask compliance in that wisconsin study. and we need to just make sure that we can get the community spread down so we can get our kids back. >> dr. fauci, is there a federal plan in place to get schools open? because in some places like clark county in nevada, a disturbing rise in student suicides pushed officials there to expedite getting their students back into classrooms. >> it is extraordinary, yes, there is a federal plan.

the federal plan is linked to both having the resources for the school, which is why we so bandly need the american rescue plan to be funded, so that we have resources for mitigation for ventilation, for ppe, for all of these things, and then importantly, for testing. it's going to be a really key part of getting our children back to school is to do testing among teachers and among children. and the funding for that testing is all in this american rescue plan. >> do you worry we may start seeing more of that among kids who are out of school in other places around the country? i mean, there's often kind of a contagion effect. >> i absolutely worry about that. i worry about food insecurity. i worry about teenage pregnancy. i worry about kids falling behind in their academics. i worry about the whole package, which is why it's so very critical that schools be the first thing to open and in my mind, the last thing to close. >> dr. fauci, christina in

massachusetts sent in this video. let's take a quick listen. >> back in the spring, the united states postal service had plans to send every household cloth masks. now we're getting reports that cloth masks aren't enough. does the biden administration plan on sending every household n-95 or other equivalent masks? additionally, does the biden administration plan on emphasizing the use of these medical grade masks? >> i don't know if you could hear that, dr. fauci. what is the sort of -- >> no, i didn't hear it very well at all. >> talking about -- >> sim sorry, what was the question? >> talking about masks -- >> and what was the question she was asking? >> should people be wearing masks like n-95 masks and other types of masks when they are out in public? i noticed you've been wearing two masks lately, for example. should there be n-95 masks for everyone? >> and she wanted to know if the biden administration was going to be sending them out to americans. >> well, i'm not sure that that will happen. i'll ask dr. walensky about that, but the one thing that i

will say, and i'm sure dr. walensky will back me on this, is that the most important thing is that everybody should be wearing a mask. the cdc does not recommend that you must wear two masks nor does the cdc recommend that you have to wear an n-95 mask. they just say, the most important thing is get everybody to wear a mask. and i'd like to turn it over to dr. walensky, because she and i talk about this all the time. >> that's exactly right. so, everybody should be wearing a mask. everybody, if you're wearing a cloth mask, it should be a multilayered mask so you have several layers of protection first a single mask. and there are certainly ongoing studies evaluating the protective evfficacy of these masks, especially in the context of the new variants, so we'll see more data to come. >> does it make sense to, for the federal government, to send out masks, to american

households? >> you know, it's not entirely clear to me that the reason that people aren't wearing masks is because they don't have access to them. certainly i would -- i would highly advocate for those in areas where they are underresourced and they can't purchase masks or they don't have access, we need to make sure that people have the adequate protection, but it's not clearly clear in my mind that the challenge with mask wearing has been one of access. >> yeah. >> is the reason the cdc's not recommending n-95 masks like this for everybody is because there's not enough? because it does seem to offer a lot more protection. if people wore these masks in public, we could start to really bring the pandemic down, almost end it within four weeks is what he said. why not just recommend it, especially with the more transmissible variants. >> yeah, it's a really good question and wheone we get a lo. i've spent a reasonable amount of time in an n-95 mask. they're hard to tolerate all day

every day. and when you think about how well people will wear them, i worry that if we suggest or require that people wear n-95s, they won't wear them all the time. they're very hard to breathe them. they are very hard to tolerate when you wear them for long periods of time. i think if everybody is wearing a mask, if you are wearing it, if you are six feet apart and anybody else who you might be with is also wearing a mask, that you have enough protective efficacy in the barriers of those two masks and the space between you that you probably don't need it. >> dr. walensky, dr. fauci, we have to take a quick break. more answers to your questions coming in. and dr. marcella nunez-smith, the chair of president biden's covid health equity task force is going to talk to us about equal access to vaccines and treatments.

what if you could have the perspective to see more? at morgan stanley, a global collective of thought leaders offers investors a broader view.

♪ we see companies protecting the bottom line by putting people first. we see a bright future, still hungry for the ingenuity of those ready for the next challenge. today, we are translating decades of experience into strategies for the road ahead. we are morgan stanley. bottom line is, mom's love that land o' frost premium sliced meats have no by-products. (his voice) “baloney!” (automated voice) has joined the call. (voice from phone) hey, baloney here. i thought this was a no by-products call? land o' frost premium. fresh look. same great taste. new projects means new project managers. i thought this was a nyou need to hire.l? i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home. these folks don't have time to go to the post office they use stamps.com all the services of the post office only cheaper get a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale

go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. it's moving day. and while her friends are doing the heavy lifting, jess is busy moving her xfinity internet and tv services. it only takes about a minute. wait, a minute? but what have you been doing for the last two hours? delegating? oh, good one. move your xfinity services without breaking a sweat. now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today.

welcome back to our cnn global town hall. throughout the night, you'll see viewers submitting questions scrolling down on the screen. back with dr. anthony fauci and dr. rochelle walensky. dr. walensky, there is reporting the biden administration is considering covid testing for domestic travel here in the u.s. that's according to a federal official that says the

government is looking actively at the possibility. can you speak to that? is that wise? is that going to happen? >> well, so, i think when we think about international travel, we've had stronger guidelines now on international travel requiring tests three days before and a test -- self-quarantine, as well as a test three to five days after self-quarantine for seven days. i want to emphasize that now is not the time to be traveling, period. internationally or domestically. it's just not a good time to be traveling. as part of the american rescue act, we have a budget for a lot more testing, much of that budget is going to be testing in schools. but i would really see much of that budget and the biden administration, as well, to use it for high risk activities. and one of those would be fordo. >> dr. fauci, let's get back to some viewer questions. carol, who is a grandmother of five from virginia beach, sent in this video.

take a look. >> one of the worst parts about the pandemic is not being able to travel freely to see our grandchildren. my husband and i just got the first dose of the moderna vaccine and on february 19th, we'll get the second dose. when will we have immunity and when will we be able to travel? >> we just heard dr. walensky say now is not the time to be traveling. but what about this type of situation specifically? >> well, you know, what the person who called that question in said, when will they have immunity? you can get some degree of protection, some degree that isn't durable, you know, 10 to 14 days after the first dose, but you can't rely on that. the maximum immunity begins about ten days to two weeks and beyond following the second dose. that goes for anyone regardless of whether you want to travel or not. that would give you as a group

about a 94% to 95% efficacy and a good safety profile. the situation, though, does not change what dr. walensky said. that it is not a good idea to travel. period. i mean, if you absolutely have to travel and it's essential, then obviously one would have to do that. but we don't want people to think because they got vaccinated then other public health recommendations just don't apply. one of the biggest things that are really not well understood is people ask, why should i even have to wear a mask after i get my second shot? and the reason is very clear. that the primary end point of the vaccine trial was clinically apparent infection. so, you could conceivably get infected, get no symptoms and still have virus in your nose, which means you would have to wear a mask to prevent you from

infecting someone else, as well as the other side of the coin, where you may not be totally protected yourself. so getting vaccinated doesn't say, now i have a free pass to travel, nor does it say that i have a free pass to put aside all of the public health measures that we talk about all the time. >> yeah. >> does -- so you're saying that the vaccine does not prevent necessarily against infection. are you saying that that's the case or we haven't shown it yet? do we still have to prove this out, dr. fauci? >> right. we don't -- sanjay, very good question. we do not know that as a fact. but we can now as we get a few months into the followup, what we will be able to do is quantitative assessment of the amount of virus in the nose to an unvaccinated person to a

vaccinated person with an asymptomatic infection and if you have such a very low level of virus, it's unlikely that even though you were infected that you would pass it on. but we don't know that yet. that associated with cohort studies, where you actually look specifically at the spread, you'd be able to sew it. bottom line, sanjay, this is an assumption that i think is reasonable, but we don't know the facts yet. that's the reason why we have to do the study. >> let's get another question in from bev, who wants to know this. you talked about this a little bit already. she's asking, are contingency plans now being made for alterations and redistribution of the mrna vaccines in case one of the current or future variants of covid-19 prove to render the current vaccines much less effective? so, you can retool the vaccine, is that right? >> yeah, actually. this is the question that i believe i answered a little bit

ago, but i'm glad that this questioner asked it again. one of the beauties, sanjay, of the mrna approach is that it's highly adaptable. so, what you have is this bit of rna and you stick in the part of the rna that colds focodes for protein of the spike that is in the virus thatcirc circulating in our country. when you want to adapt it to, say, let's say we're now, want to protect against the south african isolate. you take that same mrna and instead of sticking in the coding component for the virus that's circulating in our own country, you just quickly stick in the one that codes for the south african isolate. it is highly adaptable. and what you do -- we're already starting this, sanjay. this is something we're doing in collaboration with the pharmaceutical companies. we've already started that. but what you then do is a quick

phase one trial to show safety. you don't have to do a 30,000-person trial or a 44,000-person trial. you work with the fda and you could bridge information from one trial to another. bottom line is, we're already on it and that's one of the beauties of the mrna type of a platform that it's easily adaptable to what we're talking about. >> dr. walensky, william in oregon sent in this video question. let's take a look. >> i recently lost my sister due to covid-19. as an african-american, i was wondering if one type of the vaccine, be it moderna, pfizer or johnson & johnson, is recommended over the other? i'm unaware if the current data proves one is more effective than the other based on race, but i was hoping that you can clarify. thank you for your time. >> dr. walensky? >> first of all, william, i'm so sorry for your loss.

we don't have any data that suggests that one vaccine is better than another for any subgroups. the subgroup analysis from the trial is just that. we don't have massive numbers. we don't yet know the data from j&j, so it's hard to compare j&j in the absence of data with moderna or pfizer. but what we do know of the pfizer and moderna trials is that they have had similar efficacy across ages and races. >> we're going to talk much more about race and equity with one of our next guests. up next is a question from brandon in new york. it reads, can you answer this, because my fiance is concerned. does the covid vaccine affect people and reproductive systems immediately after the shot or months or years after the shot if we want to get pregnant? dr. walensky? >> great question. we don't have evidence to suggest yes or no. we believe they are safe for reproduction. there are no -- there is limited data, really, in pregnancy right

now for women who are pregnant, but we don't have any dayta to suggest and we don't believe there should be any bad effects on reproductive health. >> dr. walensky and dr. fauci, we so appreciate you being with us. >> thank you. >> dr. fauci, a couple of viewers said they're worried about you, you look tired, i'm sure you're exhausted, we appreciate you taking the time to -- >> i think you look good, dr. fauci, don't listen to them. >> it wasn't a criticism. >> you're going to give me a complex. >> they're concerned. >> my wife just texted me and said you look tired. >> maybe it was your wife who was dm-ing me on instagram. because i got a bunch. seriously, thank you so much and we appreciate you just answering all our questions and gives us so much time. thank you. we wish you the best. just ahead, dr. marcella nunez-smith, chair of the health equity task force. also, the challenges of vaccine

distribution in minority communities. we'll talk about the administration's plans to make sure all americans receive equal access to vaccines and treatments. signed up as a nursing cadet for world war ii. she was only 17. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com the world's first fully autonomous vehicle is almost at the finish line what a ride! i invested in invesco qqq a fund that invests in the innovators of the nasdaq-100 like you become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq i'm erin. -and i'm margo. we've always done things our own way. charted our own paths. i wasn't going to just back down from moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. psoriatic arthritis wasn't going to change who i am. when i learned that my joint pain could mean permanent joint damage, i asked about enbrel. enbrel helps relieve joint pain, and helps stop permanent joint damage. plus enbrel helps skin get clearer in psoriatic arthritis. ask your doctor about enbrel, so you can get back

to your true self. -play ball! enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders and allergic reactions have occurred. tell your doctor if you've been someplace where fungal infections are common. or if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding or paleness. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. visit enbrel.com to see how your joint damage could progress. enbrel. eligible patients may pay as little as $5 per month.

as noted today by dr. marcella nunez-smith, black and latino people are dying at righter rates, making equal access to treatments and vaccines critical for underserved communities. we're going to speak with dr. nunez smith in a moment. but first, a look at how some of these communities are hoping. our gary tuchman joins us from the south bronx. new york state is doing its part to get the vaccine to minority communities. you are at public housing apartments. what are they doing to vaccinate residents? >> reporter: well, anderson, new york state has started a new program and in the program, you

don't have to find the covid vaccine. the covid vaccine finds you. and this is the south bronx. it's one of the poorest neighborhoods in new york city, one of the poorest in new york state, one of the poorest in the united states. and the housing project we are at is called the davidson houses. this is public housing for seniors, about 250 people live here. all of them people of color. they were told last week that covid vaccines would be made available by the state in the lobby of this building. people were very excited, but others were a little nervous. they said, maybe i better go to my doctor and have my doctor give it to me. they were told, who knows when your doctor will get it. you're lucky. you can get it in your own building. and the turnout was great. between 80% and 90% of the residents who live here got the covid vaccines this past saturday. among those who didn't, a lot of them just couldn't be reached, weren't home or didn't answer their phones. a great turnout. by a mile and a half north of here at a senior center, they got 150 doses. the same thing. a great turnout. all 150 doses were taken. right now, the program is very

small, but as the supply continues to grow, the amount of locations in this state, the number of days, the number of hours will increase dramatically. at least that's the plan. and we can tell you all these people we've seen who have gotten the vaccines, they have a date three weeks from now for vaccine number two >> chair of the president covid-19 task force. associate professor of internal medicine and public health. at yale university. welcome doctor. >> thank you for having me. >> you said earlier today that it takes intention and deliberate action to advance equity in the vaccine distribution process. when you look at the disparity in vaccination among races, what do you hope to combat the types of disparities?

>> we have to do so much work to disrupt this predictability of disproportionate impact. in this case, access to vaccine. if we think specifically about the numbers you quoted. cnn analysis as well as kaiser health news and others have found a similar pattern already emerging across the country. we know part of this has to do with vaccine acceptance. we have to build vaccine confidence. that's part of our work. a lot of this has to do with access. i mean, it's a great example what's happening in new york right now. we have to make vaccination easy and accessible. that's a key priority that's built into president biden's national plan. in a multicomponent, multi-pronged way, that vaccination is easy to obtain and when people cannot get to these new vaccination sites that are being stood up that we bring the vaccine to them. and the vaccines are free. so, that's one of the most important things we need to do

is focus on equitable access to vaccines. >> you know, dr. nunez-smith, since the beginning people have been largely told stay home as much as you can, but there's a lot of people who don't really have the choice of staying home. you know, of not going to work. so as a result, they had greater risk to themselves, to their families, so how do you respond to those who can't work from home like so many others do? how do you make sure those on the front lines are staying safe? many of whom come from minority communities. >> yeah, this is such an important point. you know, we talk about disparities and equities that we see, let's say, by race or ethnicity, you know, we don't often dig deeper into what are those root causes or those social structural drivers. you know, to your point, we see that in front-line essential workers there's an overrepresentation. for example, of people of color. multigenerational homes as well. one of the things that's very important is for us to target

and tailor messages. how do you keep yourself safe if you have to leave your home every day to go work in the grocery store? you know, how do you keep your family safe in a multigenerational household? i often say to people, you know, my home is multigenerational and we wear masks at home as well to keep those in our home who are high risk safe. so, so critical, so key, for us to keep in mind that not everyone has the privilege to sort of stay home or even the abilities, quite frankly, when advised to quarantine and isolate, we have to make sure people have the supports necessary to do that. >> i want to follow up quickly on something anderson asked about as well regarding vaccine equity. lawrence gaston, he's a professor of global health law at georgetown university, he said this the other day, he said, "having a racial preference for the covid-19 vaccine is not only ethically permissible but an ethical imperative." should race be a factor in terms of what place in line you are with regard to the vaccine?

>> we have to be extremely targeted and prioritize the hardest-hit communities. you know, that's no question and, you know, as i've said, we have to be intentional and deliberate about that. we are working already with states and local, you know, municipalities and jurisdictions to think about their pandemic response plans and, quite frankly, the equity plans and components of it. if you're going to offer technical assistance when needed, and in places like new york where things are going well and that equity front is share best practice. we have to lean into data on this. i agree 100%, we need better data, need more consistent data. our racial, ethnic, data are not great but we are lucky to have other metrics as well. cdc has developed a social vulnerability index. we could really use some of those measures to push an equity at the same time. while we're striving to increase the quality of data vis-a-vis

race, ethnicity, or any of the other groups that have been hard hit. >> what does that exactly mean? when you're looking at this issue, i mean, the blanket question is, you know, should race be that the people in the black community should have a more -- greater access or faster access given the statistics or is it people who live in multigenerational homes, whether they are black or white or people who work in a grocery store? should it be, i mean, race based, is race just one factor? i'm not sure i understood what you meant. >> yeah, no, absolutely, thanks for letting me clarify. so, you know, we know that when we see these disparities in race, it has to do with, you know, what creates risk for exposure as well as risk for severity. and both of those are quite frankly tied to underlying social factors. you know, risk for exposure goes back to that overrepresentation in front-line, you know, health

care workers, for example, or essential workers. we think about risk for severity, it's the fact that so many people of color in our country are living with multiple chronic diseases because of the chronic inability to access high quality health care. so prioritizing what drives the risk, specifically, is what has been at the center of acip's guidelines and i think that makes sense. certainly, when we look at something like the social vulnerability index at the cdc, you know, race is one of the factors that goes into that index. >> and i want to get to some questions from our viewers. lonnie in texas sent in a video. i want to take a look. >> the church plays a large role in the black community and communities of color, and i'm wondering if you have considered involving the ministers and leaders in our communities of color in this endeavor. i think it would do a couple things.

first of all, i think it would help the people in the community to feel more comfortable with taking the vaccine, believing that it is more safe and effective coming from the mouth of some of their leaders, and secondly, if they are ministers of some of the larger or megachurches in our communities of color, the people would know where those churches are and would feel more comfortable taking the vaccines in their social halls or their fellowship halls, and it would help greatly in the communities where the vaccinations are needed the most. have you considered this? >> doctor? >> yeah, great. i'm so glad to have a chance to speak to this. you know, when we talk about building vaccine confidence, in particular, what we know and what the science tells us, you know, people will have

reasonable questions. they deserve clear and consistent answers. but who answers them also matters a great deal. it is just fundamental to our work that we partner with local communities, with community leaders, faith leaders are a great example of some of those trusted messengers. it's our responsibility to make sure those trusted messengers have the information, you know, that they need and we are already working in close partnership with many coalitions of faith leaders. this is just key in getting the word out. and also back to that question of access, i think that's exactly right. as we seek to target communities that have been hardest hit, it's important that people have vaccination opportunities in their neighborhoods. and so that when they, you know, are ready and it's their turn that they can get vaccinated in a space where they're very comfortable. >> yeah. melissa in -- >> we're definitely pursuing that. >> melissa in florida sent in a video. i want to play that. >> as a disabled veteran

currently living in the state of florida, i do not meet the state's age requirement of 65 or older to receive the covid vaccinations. as a disabled veteran, my question is, will the v.a. medical centers be providing covid-19 vaccinations for veterans that have medical comorbidities that would like to receive the vaccinations but do not meet their state's age requirement? thank you. >> great question. >> yes. great question. and thank you so much for your service. you know, we are very fortunate to have additional federal resources that we can bring to bear to combat this pandemic. you know, and quite frankly, to get vaccinations out. we're already working with the v.a. to establish these pathways to vaccination for the veterans just as you mentioned. and so it is very high priority that we make sure that you get vaccinated and, of course, that it be easy and accessible for you.

you know, people living with disabilities in our country is a substantial number of people, and often underrecognized in terms of the impact the pandemic is having on them as well. so this is all the more reason why we have to be so deliberate about getting to everyone who needs to be vaccinated. >> dr. marcella nunez-smith, really a pleasure to talk to you. thank you for taking the time. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> we hope tonight we helped with answers to some of your questions about the pandemic. >> there is one more thing you should know and that is show you can help. for more information on that, go to cnn.com/impact. also our impact your world team has put together this interactive guide of resources that's at cnn.com/coronavirushowtohelp. you're going to find a list of resources and organizations and ideas where you can donate or find help for yourself or a-ed one. anderson, i thought that was great. >> yeah. >> we covered a lot of ground there. it was nice to have a town hall like this. we're still in the middle of this pandemic. >> it's nice to have experts who